


The Truth in My Eyes

by firecube



Category: Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle
Genre: M/M, Outo Arc, POV Multiple
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-08
Updated: 2015-12-08
Packaged: 2018-05-05 16:50:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5383004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firecube/pseuds/firecube
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If only all the hands that reach could touch.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Truth in My Eyes

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Tsubasa and its characters belong to CLAMP.  
> A/N:  
> Roughly the first third of this chapter was something I started a long time ago, one of the first things I wrote for this series, but never got around to completing it. I found it a while ago and had an idea, so I decided to finish it. As a result, the writing style might be inconsistent, but I did some revision to smooth things out a bit. I’ve also decided that there will be a second chapter for this one.

It was Saturday, so Fai had closed up café for the day and Kurogane gave Syaoran a day off training. In Kurogane’s opinion, the kid needed all the training he could get, but if he didn’t get himself some rest he would drop dead and not have to worry about it anymore.

Fai stretched lazily across the bar counter and frowned up at the ceiling intently as if the secrets to the universe were written across it. It was very narrow, but with his lean physique, the mage managed to lie atop it. Kurogane sipped saké and glared at Fai out of the corner of his eye, half vaguely thinking the behavior the idiot was displaying wasn't a very couth sign of a café owner and half gritting his teeth in anticipation for him to eventually come up with some monstrous idea as how to best make Kurogane miserable.

Meanwhile, out on the front steps Mokona was telling Sakura about some magic-circle jargon Yuuko once cooked up as the princess listened keenly with jade green eyes sparkling.

Syaoran listened politely as Mokona gestured boisterously as they stood between the two teenagers, paws outstretched. He seemed calm and earnest as ever but exhausted.

Kurogane downed the last three ounces of saké with a gulp and slammed the large bottle down on the table.

Fai rolled his head over to face him. “Kuro-sama drinks too much,” he chortled with that same stupid grin.

“Like you're one to talk. I’m going upstairs.” He stood up abruptly and shoved the chair in. A lot of good it would do. The mage would just follow him up there.

“Hmm…Kuro-pin’s gonna leave me here all by myself? That’s cruel.”

“If being alone bothers you that much, then go bother the kids and the manjuu bun. Except I don’t really get the impression that being alone bothers you too much at all,” he huffed, already heading for the stairs.

Fai hurriedly followed after him. “What do you mean, Kuro-tan? I’m social and friendly with everybody!”

“You know damn well what I mean. And don’t give me that crap. I don’t fall for it.”

“There’s nothing to fall for,” Fai singsonged, then prodded Kurogane in the back. “Unless of course you’re talking about my good looks.”

Kurogane spun around abruptly in Fai’s face. “You said it, didn’t you? You said that you’ve been waiting for someone to stay by your side.” He felt stupid at repeating the mage’s stupid, sappy words about that dumbass song, but he also couldn’t get the idiot’s far-off gaze, like he was staring off into a distant space and time, out of his head, either.

“Yes…” He obviously got the message that a simple ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, Kuro-tan’ wasn’t going to cut it this time, wasn’t going to anger Kurogane into just dropping it.

“Well, then listen to this.” He _was_ angry, but angry enough to _not_ drop it. Angry enough to ramble things he didn’t really consciously intend to say. “Being nothing but a fake _liar_ isn't going to do shit for me and sure as hell nothing for you. So unless you want to help yourself, then I can't help you either.”

He swung around into his room and slammed the door so hard the wall rattled.

Fai went back downstairs.

 _“…I can't help you…?”_ What he said about Fai being a fake liar and it doing nothing for him was true. The fact that no one could help Fai unless he wanted to help himself was true. But since when had Kurogane given a damn about helping Fai?

He had made it clear on numerous occasions that he doesn’t fall for Fai’s little tricks.

Fai’s little tricks have turned out to be a nearly indestructible mask across his true face and soul.

Demolishing nearly indestructible things sounded like a challenge made just for Kurogane. He had knowingly taken that challenge, and he didn’t think that meant _helping_ the one who wore the mask.

But somehow, lately, challenge had turned into task. And Kurogane wasn’t so sure if task meant helping or not.

At least, he himself had just said as much.

*

Later that night, Fai cooked up a huge quantity of an elaborate supper for the kids to marvel at.

Kurogane would have turned it down to assure Fai that the conversation wasn’t to be forgotten so easily, but, hell, he was hungry, and Fai’s supper wasn’t quite as sickeningly sweet as Fai’s breakfast.

He stabbed his steak grudgingly with a fork. He had somehow gotten used to these types of utensils since that snowy world with the ghost Princess and the evil doctor.

He watched as Fai neatly cut his into small pieces with a knife first. Kurogane was obviously glaring because Fai met eyes with him, blinking before beaming childishly, almost maliciously even. At least to Kurogane it looked that way. “Oh, is the meal really that contradictory to Kuro-sama’s taste that he has to glare so sourly at the cook?”

He opened his mouth to speak when the manjuu butted in as always. “Mokona thinks that Kurogane needs a good night’s sleep! That might improve his attitude!”

“You shut up…”

The kids had fallen silent, watching meekly and uncomfortably in anticipation of the outburst that was likely about to ensue. They’d gotten used to it well enough by now. Kurogane had too, despite himself. But that didn’t mean that he enjoyed it or anything like that at all.

But when he knocked the first chip out of the mage’s mask, that was the true start of the sinister yet somehow splendid game that defined a relationship between them: one of lies and pointing out lies and more lies and crushing lies and incessant lies and searching for whatever was the truth. What all happened before that, the handful of previous worlds where they hadn't just quite finished sizing each other up, picking apart remnants and pieces…well, that was just a prologue, an exposition.

Kurogane didn’t feel like starting anything then, so he shut up and finished his food. The kids and the manjuu gradually came back to life, Fai following suit, as they all four began a discussion about the appearances of the oni, of which Kurogane listened along to vaguely.

Not long after that, after the dishes had been washed and put away, everyone retired to bed.

Fai lay awake just like Kurogane. Kurogane could tell. He could feel the unrest radiating through the wall from the adjacent room.

He had heard of insomnia but didn’t figure that was the mage’s problem. He’d heard of night terror as well, and didn’t strongly doubt that Fai might have been afflicted. Many a night had Fai whimpered in his sleep, and a select few times he had bolted upright, somewhat awkwardly due to his sleeping on his stomach, but Kurogane could tell that the other man had been terrorized all the same.

Sometimes, when the group or just the two of them had to share a room, Kurogane would decide not to ignore Fai, ask him what the hell his problem was, either then and there or in the morning. Fai would laugh that stupid laugh and let his hand dangle limply from his wrist, and say something along the lines of, “A big, angry Mr. Black was chasing after me in my sleep!” his eyes shining bright with lies.

Why was Kurogane the only one to see?

There was also the possibility that Fai was awake thinking hard on something. _Something._

 _I don’t trust you,_ Kurogane told the mage to himself.

_I don’t trust you, and to such a degree that I don’t even trust you with yourself._

Fai never went to sleep. Neither did Kurogane.

*

The next morning when Kurogane went downstairs the kids and the manjuu were waiting expectantly.

Sakura looked at him timidly. “Um, Kurogane-san, do you know if Fai-san is all right? He’s usually up much earlier.”

Kurogane shrugged, and said for some reason he wasn’t entirely sure of, “In bed. If you ask me, all of his tomfooleries have finally caught up with him.”

He mentally slapped himself. Since when did he help the mage cover up whatever twisted shit was going on with him?

Sakura pressed a hand to her mouth. “Oh no, does he have a fever?”

“I can run to the pharmacy and pick him up some medicine,” Syaoran offered, rising from his seat.

Kurogane sighed. “Just leave him alone. He’ll sleep and then be right back to normal, mark my words.” He actually knew that’s exactly what Fai would do, the latter half at least.

“Mokona hopes Fai gets well soon!” Mokona exclaimed hammily, waving their paws in the air from their current perch on Sakura's head.

“Kid.”

“Yes, Kurogane-san?”

“You and the princess and the manjuu go and pick up supplies for the café.” It was unlike him, but he felt he needed the three of them out of his hair; he was in a peculiar mood. “And take your time. Take the princess flower-viewing or something.” So much for stealth, but Kurogane really didn’t care.

“What will Kurogane do?” Mokona questioned.

“I have something else to take care of.”

Syaoran and Sakura both looked at him curiously, but luckily the two of them were polite enough to mind their own business.

When they departed, putting up the ‘Closed’ sign on their way out, Kurogane went back upstairs, quietly. He really didn’t want the mage to know he had stayed behind, if he could help it. He even winced when the bed creaked slightly under his weight. The mage would probably be able to sense his presence anyways, he thought.

But then he realized that obviously Fai thought he was alone, for Kurogane could hear stifled sniffles through the thin wall dividing them. Fai was crying. Kurogane had never seen Fai cry, and he never thought of seeing Fai cry unless he finally succeeded in making the idiot cry himself.

But now he was hearing it, and that was a start.

This idiot had problems. Kurogane wondered what it was, exactly, that was making the mage cry, and even pitied him.

He himself had not cried since…well, since that fateful day of his parents’ deaths.

Unimaginable terrors lied behind Fai’s mask, of that Kurogane was now certain.

He made a silent vow to unearth them. Partly because he damn well wanted to, partly because not knowing irritated him, and partly because it was for Fai’s own damn good.

*

After about ten minutes or so of rather silent weeping, Fai finally rose from his bed and went downstairs.

His footsteps seemed tentative, as if he had gotten up just because he felt ashamed of _not_ getting up, and now he really wasn’t sure of what to do.

Kurogane listened carefully, walking to the doorway when he had made certain Fai had gone completely downstairs.

After a few short minutes, he heard noise from the instrument that, according to the kid, was called a piano: a soft, clipped noise.

Fai pressed random keys on the piano, and then pressed them all in order. The sounds resulted from each individual key being pressed varied in pitch, and in order they went from a low pitch to an increasingly higher one.

Fai did this a few times in each direction, and then the noise ceased. Kurogane thought that Fai had finally gotten bored of it when a slow melody reached his ears.

Fai was playing the piano. Beautifully so. Kurogane was surprised. Obviously, Fai had pianos wherever the hell it was he came from. He was definitely lying when he told the group he had never seen such an instrument before. And apparently for some reason he didn’t want anyone else to know that he could play so well, waiting until he thought everyone was gone.

Just another thing for Kurogane to find out the whats and whys of.

Kurogane had never paid much attention to music; he never had time for it, too busy being a ninja. But this melody Fai was composing undeniably stirred something in him.

It was gorgeous, yet heavy with melancholy. Only an unmasked Fai would play something like this.

Kurogane crept down the stairs.

The tempo increased, and tones blended together as Fai skillfully played multiple keys with deft hands.

Kurogane wondered what the mage’s face looked like right now and continued down until he peeked around the doorframe.

Fai was fully engrossed in his undertaking, eyes closed as he moved his upper body back and forth in sync with the music, his hands crisscrossing in complex patterns, never faltering.

The look on his face matched the melody perfectly: an impossibly poignant, lonesome, and bottomless despair.

_So this is what you really look like._

The mage was so absorbed that he never noticed Kurogane, who continued to watch silently, noting when Fai would take in shaky breaths despite his flawlessly elegant demeanor.

It went without saying that Fai was pouring his heart and soul out into this music. No wonder he would only do it alone. It spoke volumes of what Kurogane already knew was there, what Kurogane reached for, what Kurogane couldn’t touch.

Kurogane envied the piano, if only abstractedly.

The melody eventually grew softer, slower, Fai’s fingers steadily losing speed before he struck the last key with a long, pale finger and looked up.

His cerulean eyes widened when they rested on Kurogane’s form, now standing before him a few feet away.

Something glazed Fai’s eyes over that Kurogane couldn’t identify, for it was too fleeting. It was followed up by a false shine, yet somehow less pretentious than usual.

One corner of his mouth raised up, then the other. A smile. An odd sort of smile. Not exactly fake but not revealing all either.

His voice came out smooth and friendly. “I didn’t realize you were still here. Were you listening to that?”

Kurogane shrugged and replied vapidly, “You said you’d never seen one of these before.”

“I haven’t.”

It wasn’t a lie. If it were, it would have been accompanied by that stupid smile.

“Then how did you compose something like that?”

Fai stood up from the small black seat before the piano slowly, lithely. “I just…I saw how the keys worked, how there was a gradient in the pitch. Once I knew that, it was pretty easy to…”

Fai trailed up and looked at Kurogane hesitantly, obviously not expecting the other man to believe him.

The funny thing was, Kurogane _did_ believe him. For a change.

“You do realize anyone that can do something like that out of nowhere would be considered a genius?”

Fai shrugged and suddenly became fascinated with his fingernails. “I wouldn’t call it _that._ I guess I just have a talent for musical things.”

Fai certainly could have brought up Fai’s insomnia, his weeping, or the stark symbolism behind that woefully beautiful melody. But Fai didn’t need that, at least not now. There was always time for confrontations later.

“Did the children have breakfast?” Fai inquired, walking across the room to stand behind the bar.

“No…” Kurogane had never heard the mage refer to the others as ‘the children’ before. Was he getting attached? “I told them to go get some supplies for the café and take their time. And I told them you were sick, and to let you get some sleep, you’d be just fine after that.”

“I’m sorry,” was the unexpected response, quick and soft, heavy and grave. Fai was turned away now, grabbing things from the pantry, his face hidden from Kurogane, who wasn’t even entirely sure whom the mage was supposed to be apologizing to. Fai probably wasn’t entirely sure either, Kurogane thought.

When Fai turned around to face him again, he donned the customary cheerful grin. “Tell you what, Kuro-puppy, I’ll cook you up a nice breakfast, so in return you can help me make something good for the others. I’ll bet they’ll be hungry when they get home.”

Kurogane huffed in response. “I can’t cook.”

“I’ll find something for you to do,” Fai assured him, already busy with pots and pans.

*

After Fai finally removed the trays of sweets from the oven and left them out to cool (the final stage of a grueling process of steps almost exclusively carried out by Fai, as Kurogane was too busy retaliating to his ridiculous teasing and/or somehow managing to burn everything Fai naively entrusted him with), a somewhat awkward silence pervaded the kitchen.

Fai took a seat in the chair across from Kurogane. “I bet a lot of people are disappointed that the café is closed today.”

Kurogane huffed. “It’s your fault.”

“I know.”

Fai had the look of someone who had just blurted out something he wished he could take back.

Kurogane narrowed his eyes at him. “What’s wrong with you?”

Fai grinned. “That’s a really mean thing to say. And after I made such a good meal for you, too.”

“I’d like to see it again sometime.”

Fai’s smile dropped. “What?”

“The song.”

The mage smiled again. “Don’t you mean you’d like to _hear_ it again?”

“No. I want to _see_ it. You know what I mean.”

Although Fai must have gotten his drift, he gave Kurogane an odd look. One of fear? Warning? Something like that. It seemed out of place, but honest.

“I’m going to run upstairs for a bath,” he said hastily, heading for the doorway.

Kurogane subconsciously extended his hand, clasping it in the thin air Fai just walked through.

Whatever he was reaching for, he wasn’t sure. He wasn’t sure why he was reaching for it.

But he would never stop reaching until he could touch.

**Author's Note:**

> Endnotes:  
> The next chapter will be in Fai’s POV. Thank you for reading!


End file.
